Archive | Homemade Recipes

I make meringues quite a lot for fruit mess, which is one of my signature desserts whenever I’m entertaining at home. Although it only requires at minimum 2 ingredients (eggs and sugar), it’s a pretty technical dish that requires egg whites with no trace of yolk, absolutely clean utensils with no trace of grease, just the right amount of beating, etc. You can check out my post on making meringues here.

I have always thought that egg whites is irreplaceable in meringues. There’s no known ingredient that could whip up stiff like egg whites and then dehydrate beautifully in an oven into beautiful, crunchy, airy, sweet biscuits.

Back in May, I read an article on New York Times about aquafaba and I was just completely and utterly mind-blown. WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS SORCERY!?

# – Aquafaba on NYT.

Aquafaba is basically water that has been cooked with legumes such as chickpeas and canellini beans. So, that water that you drain off from a can of chickpeas, that’s aquafaba. For some reason, it has the ability to mimic the properties of egg whites and this was only discovered in 2015 by some dude named Goose Wohlt. So yeah, it’s a pretty new thing and honestly I am surprised I’ve only heard about this a year later.

After reading the NYT article, I knew I was going to attempt it. I know it sounds silly for somebody who cooks and bakes pretty regularly, but I really hate separating eggs. For some reason, I am horrendous at it. It’s one of my most hated things in the world and so to be able to make meringues without having to separate those evil eggs?

SIGN ME UP, BUTTERCUP!

# – I am so bad at separating eggs I actually bought this piece of shit that does not work. Maybe it’s still just me.

Anyway, back to present time. Today I finally got a chance to use a can of chickpeas for lunch. So, I made sure to reserve the drained liquid from the can and I was like, I am putting this aquafaba meringue thing to the test!

# – So I poured the liquid into my mixing bowl.

# – Put my beaters to it, and started beating.

OMG, it’s foaming up!!!!! It foamed up so easily, even easier than egg whites?

# – Getting to soft peak.

# – I sprinkled some icing sugar and continued beating until stiff peaks.

OMG,I could pipe it out!!!!!

# – These are my uncooked eggless meringues made from aquafaba and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from regular meringues. It tasted vaguely of chickpeas. Stuck em into my preheated oven of 130 degrees.

Till I found this recipe from Mummy Tong, a Dayrean I follow. After reading her post, I was determined to make it.

I took some liberties with the amount of salt and also omitted one ingredient as I couldn’t find it. Also, this recipe is enough for TWO 8″ x 8″ tins. That’s too much for two people but it didn’t occur to me till much later lol.

Ingredients

(A)

2 pieces or 100 gms Lap yok or Chinese bacon of long chinese waxed sausages (lapcheong), soaked in hot water and diced

100 gm of lapyok or Chinese bacon (I didn’t use this as I couldn’t find it), diced

#9 – On low heat, keep on stirring till the mixture become sticky and lumpy. This process is quite fast.

#10 – Now add the chopped spring onions and mix in.

#11 – Scoop mixture into an oiled tin and cover with aluminium foil. Steam on medium heat for 45 minutes.

#12 – Chinese radish cakes, DONE! Sprinkle with (D).

#13 – Nice eaten steamed (dang good with a dollop of sriracha) but you can cut them out into cubes and fry them up with some chinese salted vegetable (choi bou) and bean sprouts too, which is what I am going to do for lunch today :D

By the way, buy this radish…not the tiny red ones ya. Grate till you die hah!

How funny is the name baba ganoush? It cracks me up just saying it. Baba ganoush. Doesn’t it give you the giggles?

Baba ganoush.

Apparently it means “pampered daddy” or something like that. Despite its rather comical/badass name, it’s a very delicious dip made with brinjals or aubergines or eggplants, depending where and how you learnt your English.

Ingredients

2 large eggplants

130g tahini (sesame paste)

1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt

3 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

1/8 teaspoon chilli powder

1 tablespoon olive oil

a half bunch of flat-leaf parsley or cilantro leaves

#1 – First, prick each eggplant a few times.

#2 – Place the eggplants on a baking sheet and roast in the oven at 190C for 20 to 30 minutes, until they’re completely soft. They should look like this. Remove from oven and let cool.

#3 – Split the eggplant and scrape out the pulp with a spoon.

#4 – You will be left with the skin like this. Can throw these away.

#5 – Throw the scraped pulp in a blender or a food processor.

#6 – Add tahini. I got my tahini from a grocer, you can try at any expat friendly supermarket.

#7 – Followed by lemon juice. Yes, yes, I use lemon juice from a bottle! Of course, juice from a fresh lemon is way better :)

#8 – Don’t forget the garlic cloves.

#9 – Chilli powder for some kick.

#10 – And cilantro leaves. I guess you could omit this if you can’t stand parsley/cilantro. That said, maybe you should just omit making baba ganoush altogether? LOL

#11 – Taste and season with salt and lemon juice, if necessary.

#12 – Baba ganoush, DONE!

Serve it drizzled with olive oil. It’s wonderful with crackers, melba toasts, toasted pita chips or even toasted sliced bread. Very flavoursome and quite healthy. In my case I made it to eat with kebab wraps. Delicious!